Bollywood hottie Ameesha Patel was seen in a heated exchange of words with her elderly driver outside her Juhu gym on Saturday evening, says a media report. The argument took an ugly turn as Ameesha slapped the old man.

A passerby who witnessed the ugly incident says: "Ameesha's new car was parked outside the gym. When she emerged after her workout, she saw a tiny scratch on the side of her car, and flipped out. She started hurling abuses at the driver and kept asking him for an explanation. When he couldn't come up with an answer, she slapped him hard across his cheek."

The old driver has been chauffering her since her Kaho Na Pyaar Hai (2000) days and is used to her temperamental behaviour, but he has never encountered violence before.

Says Ameesha's friend: "Ameesha has had problems with her driver for a long time. Recently he almost banged the car and even took her to the wrong address. He has a slight eyesight problem and despite her telling him to wear glasses he refuses to do so. He's been with her for a long time. Her growing frustration with him has got to her. She had a narrow escape in March when a jeep rammed into her car on the Mumbai Pune Expressway."

Ameesha outrightly denied the story. She said, she hasn't taken her car to the gym in the last three years. "This is utterly ridiculous. Nothing of this sort has happened. My house is walking distance from the gym and I just take my driver with me to hold my umbrella. You can come to my gym and ask around if anything to this effect happened. It's all lies and I will be very unhappy if this comes out."